


Beholding All His Own Mischance

by Vampiric_Charms



Series: Feeding the sheep is prohibited [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Mairon receives a very unannounced visitor when he least expects to see him.  Things do not go the way either of them expect, and perhaps not the way one of them wishes.Set in the same timeline as As the Mirror Cracks from Side to Side.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in our Sheep verse, and falls after _Mirror_ and _Heard a Carol_. Naamah_Beherit and I were discussing what might happen if Aulë and Mairon were locked in the same room again after all these years. This seemed like a good place to put such a story...and then it actually happened.
> 
> Also, I finally activated a tumblr I’ve been playing around on for a few days! Come join me, if you wish - my name there is across-the-cypress-trees.
> 
> Enjoy!

****It was a fine summer day, the sun high overhead to cast her warm rays over the lush lands below.  Melkor was currently drowsing somewhere out there, in their garden, perhaps, among the fragrant flowers under the shade of the many trees with a loosely woven straw hat pulled down over his eyes.  Mairon, however, was in his forge, hammer in hand as he crafted some personal trinket.

A warm, gentle breeze blew in through the open windows and large arched doorway, bringing in the bright grassy scents from outside to meld with the heady scents of heated metal and burning coal rising from the fires.

Mairon smiled, contented with the moment as it came and held, and he pulled the candelabra’s frame from the forge’s belly and placed it on his anvil.  The golden brass glowed red, scalding and too hot yet to smoke in the humid air.  He raised his hammer and brought it down in the frame’s center, seeing the finished product in his mind and setting about putting the vision forth.  It was only just the very beginning stages, no filigree or well-crafted arms placed to give it the elegant look it would soon have, but only a few quick strikes brought the main body into the alignment he wish for.  

He dunked it into a pail of water near the anvil, silently thrilled as steam welled quickly around him.  Through all the ages, through all the changes and turns his life took - this, working in his forge, would always bring him peace.

“A lovely place here, you’ve chosen to live.”

The suddenness of the voice in the doorway startled him badly and, failing at first to recognize the low, dulcet tones as they sounded merrily around him, Mairon dropped his tongs and hammer with a clanging thud.  The bucket overturned, water splashing out over his boots and turning the sawdusted dirt floor to mud, the brass fixture spiralling out with the flow of it and clacking against the metal tools.

Mairon spun, sorcerous fire already encasing one hand as his other reached instinctively for a sword at his hip that was no longer there, and hadn’t been for a very long time.  But habit, of course, was hard to break, and his fingers closed uselessly at his empty belt.

His startled alarm at a possible attack quickly vanished into slack surprise as his gaze landed on Aulë, standing across the way.

The fire extinguished from his fist, both hands dropping slowly, limply, to his side.  The Vala stood there silently, framed in the brick archway and backlit by the bright sunlight, watching him with such overwhelming emotion in his eyes.  Mairon found himself unable to move.

Aulë smiled at him, his kind face creasing in such a familiar, genuine way.  Mairon’s chest clenched painfully as Aulë spoke again.  “I am so very glad to see you here in such a lovely forge, still perfecting your craft.”

Silence fell around them.  This was the first time Mairon had seen Aulë is such close quarters in ages.  Truly, he could not recall the last time he had laid eyes upon his former master, the last time they had spoken.  It had to have been before he defected, before he had left Almaren so very long ago.  The clench in his chest moved up to his throat, and Mairon took a single step backward, suddenly quite unsure of what was happening.  Aulë had come so near without Mairon even noticing, without Melkor noticing - for he was still slumbering outside, the energy flowing along their connection dream-like and undisturbed.  

“What - what are you doing here?” he finally asked, reaching behind him to place a steadying hand on the anvil.  “What do you want?”

“I wished only to see you,” Aulë replied soothingly, his voice just as soft and deep as it had ever been.  Mairon swallowed, his eyes darting quickly over the Vala and then about the space, looking for any sort of trickery or danger yet finding none.  His heart was beating wildly against his sternum.  Surely Melkor would feel the surge of adrenaline, would wake and come to him.   

Aulë took a step forward and it was all he could do not to stumble backward.  “Please, Mairon,” he murmured, that calming tone reaching into the Maia’s soul and touching something long-toppled there.  “Please, just let us speak.  Only for a few minutes.  You have no reason to be afraid.”

Mairon wanted to retort that he was not afraid, of course he was not afraid!  But truly, down to his very core of being, he felt waves of fear rising up to the surface and gripping at his mind.  The Valar now signified _pain_ , and indescribable anguish, and destruction wrought by their own hands just as much as they accused of Melkor’s.  They brought devastation to his life, and madness he thought he might never be rid of even now when the night was darkest and nightmares still wrapped around his mind.  While Aulë was perhaps not one of _them_ , one of those who sought their ruin so unyieldingly during the wars, Mairon found himself hesitating far more than either of them expected.

“You should not be here,” he said shortly, lowering his eyes and turning away to collect the tools from the floor.  

He snatched up the candelabra’s frame from the muddy pit it had found itself in, scowling when he saw the metal had cooled with flecks of sawdust and dirt practically soldered to the frame.  It would have to be put back into the forge and fully heated again to remove, the work he’d already done all for nothing.  Using heat through his hands would warp the brass he’d sculpted with his hammer.  He tossed it angrily into the scrap heap.  Worthless.

Aulë held his hands before him in an unmistakable gesture of peace.  “Yes, I know.  I read your treaty through several times over and could find no loopholes.”  The Vala chuckled, suddenly looking abashed.  He glanced around the forge, the sweep of his eyes taking in a great deal.  “I came anyway, even knowing I was not permitted on the premises, nor even in your presence.  As I said, I merely wished to speak with you.”

Mairon gazed over his shoulder, very quickly, and remained silent as he returned to brushing off tools damp from the spilled bucket with a cleaning cloth.  He nodded in tacit consent, the motion so sharp it would have easily been missed if one had not been watching closely.

“Where - where is Lord Melkor?”  He bumbled only slightly across the name, but Aulë easily continued with the gentle candor he’d always had engrained within his personality.

“Asleep,” Mairon bit out harshly.  This was still true, the cord, as he turned half his focus to it, humming contentedly.  Melkor had not been woken by Mairon’s burst of panic, and he was not yet sure if he should wake him now or continue to let things progress as they were.  “He’s in the garden just around the cottage,” he added with a bit more of an attempt at conversation.  “In the grove of cherry trees.  They - well, they’re his favorite.”

Aulë took several steps closer, coming fully into the forge and purposefully into Mairon’s line of sight as he remained facing his anvil.  Mairon pursed his lips and forced himself to remain where he was standing, cloth and hammer still in hand as he finished cleaning the muddy dirt from the tool’s handle.

“Look at you,” Aulë murmured in barely concealed wonder.  He raised a hand, perhaps to reach out before thinking better of it and letting his arm drop to his side again.  “You are so very much the same, aren’t you?”

Mairon flicked his eyes up for a brief moment, catching with the Vala’s.  Their irises were a very similar color, as they always had been, molten flame and swimming metal, and he could see Aulë restrain a very slight flinch as they met.  Mairon’s eyes now, he knew, appeared searing and hard after all the ages spent living a path so different than the one intended for him.  He lowered his gaze quickly, and Aulë did not move away.

“In my physical appearance, perhaps,” he agreed quietly.

This time Aulë did reach out, his large hand coming to rest on the hammer quite close to Mairon’s fingers.  “No,” he said, voice clear.  “You have not changed nearly so much as they all think you have.”

Mairon jerked his hand away and sneered.  “If you are implying I have always had the capacity for such depths of cruelty, perhaps you are correct.”

Aulë’s face fell with disappointment and he shook his head, drawing his hand away.  “Never, Mairon, no.  I have never thought you cruel, lad.  Misguided, possibly, but not cruel as the rumors told you to be.  I feel if Melkor had not -”

“Not _what_?” Mairon interrupted angrily, feeling that tightness in his chest clutch until he almost could not breathe.  He took a step away again, head high and eyes blazing as his rage grew.  “If he had not corrupted me, do you mean to say?  If he had not _seduced_ me?”  He could feel his fear beginning to bleed back in again, welling under his skin and making him tremble with emotion he had not felt so strongly in centuries.  “What are you implying so graciously, _Master Aulë_?”

The Vala stared at him for only a heartbeat, mouth agape as he gathered his thoughts again.  But he rebounded quickly and came around the anvil to approach Mairon as close as he dared in that tumultuous moment.  “All I was trying to say, I think, was that if he had not taken you, Mairon, none of these more...inauspicious aspects of your personality would have had a chance to be cultivated.”

Mairon recoiled from him as though he’d been stung.  “Is that what you all think?” he ground through clenched teeth, feeling like a horse ready to bolt.  Or, rather, like a wolf deciding between fight or flight.  “That Melkor took me from you?  That he _stole_ me?  That I am his - his _possession_?”

Aulë opened his mouth to respond, though his nod already in the affirmative was enough to make Mairon’s blood run through his body in rage.  He grabbed his hammer from where it had been dropped, forgotten, on the anvil and threw it with a surprising surge of strength against the wall, crying out with his fury.  Brick chipped wildly and flew away at the impact, the hammer ricocheting off to bang loudly against another table before it fell to the floor.  The damage left behind was startling.

“It was my _choice_!” Mairon yelled, turning again to face the Vala who was now staring at him in shock.  “My choice!  All this time - all these _years_ \- and you thought - !”  He shouted again, the overturned bucket the next victim of his outburst as it, too, was thrown against the wall.  The steel plating dented and cracked, the bricks chipping even more.  Mairon spun to Aulë, his face showing all the fury he did so well to hide.  

“You and your kin,” he snarled, not bothering to swipe his hair from his face as it dislodged from his braid.  He felt crazed, suddenly, and he took a breath to continue.  “All of you, the Valar on your mighty thrones overlooking the world, you think you know everything, think you have all the answers.  I trusted you for so long, thought you were right in the choices you made.  You ruin everything you touch.”

These were not necessarily words he had ever meant to say to Aulë, and he somewhat regretted them at the horrified expression that came over the Vala’s face as he heard what had been said.  But Mairon could not restrain himself, nor did he care to.

“Melkor never had to steal me from you.  I was his from the moment our souls met.”

“But it is in his nature, to covet things,” Aulë attempted to maintain, his tone placating even as he attempted again to close the widening distance between them.  “We know he must have been plying you from the beginning, promising you such grand things with his power and knowledge - surely he was.  He must have desired you for his own from the beginning.”

Mairon continued to move back, keeping the space between them.  He reined himself in now, keeping his anger close before it could explode outward again in another display like before.  “Is this what you’re after?  A reason?  Some way to clear your conscience for my defection?”

Aulë did not respond and silence fell around them, thick and tense.

“What, did you think you could appear here in my home and I would graciously accept you without any backlash?  That I would be overjoyed, and show you all the new projects I was working on as I would have before?”

Mairon sighed and turned away, stalking to the forge to stoke the fire again.  It had dulled during the time they had been talking and cooled to an unacceptable level.  He pulled the bellows, taking comfort in the whooshing of sound, the quick rise of the flames.  Aulë shuffled behind him, not leaving but apparently not ready to speak yet.  Mairon let him stand with the stillness, unwilling to break it first.  He’d said everything he meant to say.

A flood of energy, both calming and unsure, rushed along the cord and swelled through his mind.

“I do wish to know,” Aulë suddenly said.  “I wish to know why you left.  You were my disciple,” he added, an undertone to his voice that Mairon had a difficult time placing, “and I thought you were happy there with me.  I thought - I thought you enjoyed learning from me.”

“I did!  Master Aulë, I did enjoy working in your forge.”  Mairon’s hands fell away from the bellows, and for the first time he felt the stirrings of remorse building in his stomach.  He caught Aulë’s gaze with his own, his anger beginning to fade away after burning so fiercely.  “There was never any question of that.  My decision was not based on unhappiness with you, truly it was not.  As I said, I left...I left because I wanted to, because I wanted to be with Melkor and to discover what he had to offer.  You had nothing to do with that choice.  And frankly, at the time, neither did he.”

Aulë nodded and looked away, placing his hand down on the now-empty anvil.  It appeared as though he had something more to say, though it was not forthcoming.

“I never forgot anything you taught me,” Mairon said softly.  “I just felt so very confined and restricted in Almaren, can’t you understand?  I wished to escape that feeling, I needed to find myself without boundaries placed upon me.  I was not leaving to incite a war, that was never my intention.  I suppose I just happened to follow Lord Manwë’s least favorite...option.  Also not _exactly_ my intention.”

Aulë laughed at that, his face opening in a genuine smile.  The tension drained away rather easily then and they both relaxed a bit more.

“Well,” the Vala chuckled after a moment, “ _do_ you have any new projects you’d like to share?”

Mairon glanced at the scrap heap and the ruined candelabra, thought of the countless gems he’d cut, the jewelry and cutlery and sconces and bits and bobs he’s made just since he had been here.  So many came to mind and he grinned, already reaching for a piece of jewelry not yet finished, when a wave of concern came washing down the golden cord and flared across his mind.  He set the piece down again, frowning as a thought came to him.

“I should perhaps warn you,” he murmured cautiously, “that Melkor is about to round the corner there.  It might be best if you prepared for - ”

The walls shook, tools and instruments rattling on their hooks as the impact from Melkor’s fist hitting the stone archway vibrated across the stones and down into the floor.  Melkor stood in the doorway, his eyes wild and glinting with fury as he focused on Aulë in the forge, on Mairon’s tense emotions only just starting to cool.  “Stand away,” he growled, the threat clear in his low tone.

“We were simply - ”

“ _Leave_!” Melkor roared loudly, not giving Aulë the chance to explain.  He took another step inside, his shoulders pulled back in a way that was a great sign of danger.  Anger exploded like untethered flame around them, crawling across their skin.  “You are not welcome here!”

Mairon stepped forward swiftly, Aulë already forgotten as he moved to dispel the immediate peril.  He put his hands on Melkor’s shoulders, drawing his attention away from the other Vala and instead to himself.  Blue eyes bright with apprehension turned on his face, and Mairon gave him a small, encouraging smile.

“You’re all right?” Melkor asked pointedly, still rather baffled, but the anger began to dissipate just the same.

“Yes,” Mairon replied.  His smile turned lopsided and he dropped his hands, standing back to put a bit more space between them again as Melkor calmed.  “Though I must say it took you long enough to get here.  If I _were_ in danger, I would likely be quite dead by now.  All you’d have left to rescue would be my decimated corpse, likely set on fire and burnt to a crisp.”

“That is not funny.”

Melkor turned away abruptly and left the forge, not looking again at Aulë.  Mairon, however, said in a distracted sort of way, “You’d best leave now.”

Aulë made a sound of hesitating agreement and Mairon glanced at him when nothing else was immediately forthcoming.  “Might I return?” he asked then.  “Another time, perhaps?”

Mairon took a breath quickly in and out, looking toward the doorway after Melkor.  He could not see the Vala any longer; he had likely wandered off into the yard.  A quick search down the bright golden cord found him surprisingly close, just outside of view, and Mairon blinked, bringing his attention back to Aulë and his question.  “Write next time,” he said by way of brief consent, “and we can arrange something.  Now please, I have things to attend to.”

He turned from Aulë, trusting him to find his own way out however he had gotten in to begin with, and left the forge.

Melkor was sitting against a tree nearby, with legs out before him and arms crossed tightly across his chest.  He raised his head when he heard Mairon approaching and his anxious posture loosened just slightly.  “Tell me there is no reason to worry.”

“There is no reason to worry.”  Mairon lowered himself to sit in the lush grass beside him, leaning half against the tree’s trunk and half against Melkor’s side.  “Truly, there is not.  He startled me, and then words were exchanged until I lost my temper.  That is all.”

“ _You_ , lose your temper?”  

Mairon just hummed noncommittally, not giving him the satisfaction of rising to such obvious bait.  Instead he shifted so his front was pressed to Melkor’s chest rather than his back, an arm draped loosely across his waist and a leg bent just slightly over Melkor’s to bring them all the closer.  He tucked his head under Melkor’s chin and, after only a moment, felt the Vala’s arms come up around him to keep him in place.

Melkor sighed heavily, the sound and motion of it rising up through his chest.  “What was he doing here?”

“Ah,” Mairon breathed, watching the grass around them blowing gently in the warm breeze.  “He was quite evasive on that point, but I believe he simply wanted to know why I left Almaren all those ages ago.  And, I suspect, why I left his tutelage specifically to join you instead.”

“I am very sorry, Mairon.”

“Whatever for?”  He looked up, startled, to see Melkor’s face.  It was lined with a surprising amount of distress, and Mairon reached up to press light fingertips to his cheek.  “Melkor?”

“I did not feel your - your reaction,” he said, turning his face away from the touch.  “To his being here.  Because I was asleep, perhaps, I’m not sure.  But Ancalagon woke me, not you, and it was _minutes_ before I realized how afraid you were, how angry, and I had no idea why.  It was as if everything coming from where you were was muddled.  I have not been that - I don’t know, alarmed - since the war.”

“But everything is fine,” Mairon insisted, taking Melkor’s face with both his hands this time and bringing his gaze back around.  “I am fine.  We simply had a surprise visitor who wished to speak with me in private.”  A thought suddenly occurred to him and his eyes lost focus for a moment as he fit the pieces together in his mind.  “I never did understand how he appeared so silently in my forge without my noticing.  Did he, do you think, mask himself from us both?  In doing so, he might have inadvertently put a damper on our little connection.  Can the Valar do that?”

Melkor made a displeased sound and frowned deeply.  “Yes.”

“I do not think he meant any harm by it,” Mairon amended for Aulë, for it was likely the truth.  He settled back down against Melkor’s chest.  “And truly, if I felt I was in danger and you weren’t responding to my non-verbal cues, I would have just _screamed_ if I was set on fire.  All right?  You have nothing to apologize for.”

Melkor just grunted unhappily again, but he didn’t reply.  Mairon fell into silence, considering the rest of the conversation he’d just had and wondering how much he should share.  He tilted his head up slightly, enough to catch sight of Melkor’s face.  He’d closed his eyes, his breathing even and calm as he found peace once more.  Mairon raised his hand to press against his chest, the gentleness of it lulling into him just as soothingly.

“Did you know,” he said very lightly, and suddenly the subject did not feel quite as terrible as it had before, out here in the shade-speckled sunshine amidst the sweet-smelling grass, Melkor’s arms loose around him and holding him close.  “They believe you think of me as your possession.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” Melkor grumbled, not even bothering to open his eyes.  “You have more will than any creature on this earth.  I couldn’t break you even if I wanted to.  You are not _mine_.”  But then one eye cracked open to a slit and he caught Mairon watching him.  “That was it, wasn’t it.  What set you off so badly.”

He grinned almost bashfully, even if he wasn’t exactly embarrassed by such an outburst.  “Perhaps, yes.”

“Well,” Melkor said, his voice rumbling beneath Mairon’s ear.  “It’s dumb, and it is certainly not true.  You set him straight on the matter, did you?”

“Of course.  Maybe not in the most expedient way.”  He thought of the chipped hole in the wall of the forge with a wash of dismay, then of the ruined bucket.  “But yes, I did.”  He looked up at Melkor again, words on his tongue to continue the conversation, when he realized something was amiss in the Vala’s already careless appearance.  “Where is you hat?”

“Hm?  Oh, my hat.  Right, yes.”  He gave a small shrug that jostled Mairon’s head just a little, though he had the foresight to look at least a bit abashed.  “I do not know.”

“You do not _know_?  Do you mean you lost it?”

“No.  A sheep ate it,” he muttered, both unamused at the loss and somewhat charmed by the circumstances at once.  “While I was asleep.  Or maybe Ancalagon did.  As I said, I do not know.  It is a mystery.”

Mairon could not help but laugh, and Melkor joined quite quickly.  “Whether it was a sheep or the dragon himself,” Mairon said with a chuckle, “we shall blame Ancalagon regardless.  The sheep are his responsibility.  Dear me.  Where shall we find you another?”

“Might we pillage a town?” Melkor asked almost hopefully.

Mairon smiled widely, feeling lightened.  Regardless, he shook his head and laughed again.  “Certainly not.  I will go shopping next week.  Though it might be difficult to find one to fit that giant head of yours.”

“So rude.”

But he held Mairon to him more tightly just the same.  They fell into silence once more, the breeze rustling the leaves overhead and bringing the scents of grass and jasmine to mingle around them.  Mairon settled more comfortably against Melkor’s chest, content to listen to the sounds of summer and the peaceful, deepening breaths beneath his ear.

He would not change any of this for anything in the world.

What was more, he did not regret a single thing.


End file.
